


My beating heart bounds with exulting motion

by annejumps



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Cardiophilia, Community: inception_kink, Heartbeat Kink, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 20:57:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annejumps/pseuds/annejumps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One thing Eames loved about the heartbeat was that it was such a profound tell, one that couldn’t be controlled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My beating heart bounds with exulting motion

**Author's Note:**

> Written today for [this prompt](http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/20822.html?thread=51682390) at inception_kink. Read but not (yet) beta'd. I had never heard of heartbeat kink before, but the prompt intrigued me.

Eames woke up suddenly, in a flat he rarely used anymore but which was a good midway point between jobs he and Arthur were separately taking.

For a moment he forgot where he was -- he hadn’t been here in months -- but he realized his head was pillowed on Arthur’s chest, a position he didn’t think he’d started out in. Arthur’s scent, his slow, steady breathing, and the muffled thump of his heart grounded him.

He smiled, drowsy, closing his eyes again.

\-------

“Hey, where’d you get this stethoscope?” Arthur called from the loo, where he was crouched down on the floor rifling through a cabinet, looking for butterfly plasters as his first aid kit was running low on them and Eames had told him he might have some.

In the kitchen, Eames started. He’d forgotten about that stethoscope. He walked in to see Arthur sitting on the tile floor, holding the stethoscope, inspecting it, and felt a jolt of arousal at the sight of Arthur’s nimble fingers on it.

“Can’t remember,” Eames lied. He had special ordered it some years ago; really, it was a shame he’d forgotten about it. But then, he’d been terribly busy lately, and what’s more, he hadn’t had a steady relationship in some time with anyone he’d deemed worthy of the stethoscope.

Perhaps Arthur finding it was a sign. The part of Eames that enjoyed serendipity found this idea appealing.

“Why do you have it? Looks expensive,” Arthur said, glancing up at him, eyebrows raised.

“Prop for a job where I forged a doctor,” Eames lied, immediately annoyed with himself for doing so. If anyone would understand something like this, Arthur would, the kinky fucker. And it wasn’t that Eames was ashamed. He really wasn’t. He just felt this was a very private matter, as hidden, personal, and important as, well, a heartbeat.

“It wasn’t that expensive,” he added.

Seemingly satisfied, Arthur put the stethoscope back, collected the plasters he’d found, and stood. He smiled at Eames.

Neither of them brought up the stethoscope again. When Eames was done with the job, however, he packed it up and took it with him.

\-------

He hadn’t seen Arthur in months, but he’d heard about a close call, something to do with Russia, or perhaps Belarus. The details were vague.

They were working a job together in New York, where Arthur had a flat. A very nice flat. A penthouse, actually. Eames had made himself at home on said penthouse’s king-size bed, his clothes and toiletries gradually encroaching upon the order of Arthur’s bedroom and ensuite over the last few days. He liked this thing he had with Arthur; it saved him a lot on hotel bills.

“Did you know I almost died?” Arthur said as he pulled the sheets over them one evening after they’d gone out for Italian food. He said it as if he were talking about the weather.

“Hm?” Eames was taken aback.

“In Minsk. I got out of a building literally seconds before it exploded.” He yawned, slipping an arm around Eames’ waist.

Eames was quiet. He and Arthur both took high-risk jobs from time to time. He’d had a few close scrapes himself, God knew. He imagined getting a call from -- someone -- with the news that Arthur was dead.

“I knew you were close to him,” he imagined the person saying, and wasn’t that an odd thing to find oneself imagining. No one really had reason to believe he and Arthur were close. Were they close? They were now, technically, Arthur’s breath warm on his neck. Arthur’s heartbeat against his back (Eames could almost feel it).

Arthur had dropped off into sleep, no doubt helped in that direction by the truly huge amount of pasta he’d eaten.

In the morning, Eames found himself with his head pillowed on Arthur’s chest, Arthur still out like a light.

\-------

Arthur was doing laundry since he was home, and stood with a pile of clothes in his arms as Eames rummaged through his suitcase for any whites he might want washed. As he pulled out various shirts and socks, his stethoscope tumbled out in a tangle of black tubing.

“You’re not forging a doctor on this job,” Arthur commented.

“No,” Eames agreed. He plucked some underthings from the pile he’d amassed and passed them to Arthur. “Must have gotten mixed up with my packing somehow.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. He took the lot to the laundry room, whistling under his breath.

It was charming, thinking of their underthings being washed and tumbling about together.

\-------

Eames returned from brushing his teeth to find Arthur sitting on the bed in his little black boxer briefs with Eames’ stethoscope around his neck, without the earpieces in. He was inspecting the diaphragm end of it. He looked up when Eames walked in, and smiled. Heart pounding, Eames leaned in to kiss him as nonchalantly as possible.

“Looks good on you,” he said.

Arthur leaned back on his elbows, the stethoscope resting on his chest, rising and falling with his breaths. “I like black,” Arthur replied, looking down at it.

Eames couldn’t take it anymore and gently plucked it from around Arthur’s neck, settling it around his own. Arthur gave him an odd look, and Eames stretched out on the bed alongside him, a palm going to Arthur’s chest.

Arthur’s eyes narrowed, and Eames could practically see the gears turning in his brain. “Why didn’t you just ask me?” Arthur said.

Eames cut his eyes over to the window and back to Arthur. “Ask you what?”

“You have some thing about stethoscopes, or lungs, or a doctor fetish or something. You think I wouldn’t get it? You know how I am about your foreskin.”

Eames did indeed know, thanks to a weekend in Capri. “Well. That’s not exactly it.” He cleared his throat, and spread his hand out over Arthur’s left pectoral. “I have a... thing... about heartbeats.”

Arthur dimpled at him, looking fond. “You would.”

“Oh yes, and what’s that supposed to mean, eh?”

Arthur shrugged. “A heartbeat thing is... primal, kind of gothic and dramatic. Sentimental.”

“You’re not wrong, but let’s save the analysis for another time, shall we?” Arthur, thankfully, wasn’t seeing the entire picture.

“Sure thing. So, you want to listen to my heartbeat?” Arthur put his hands behind his head and laid back on the bed, looking interested (and smug, as if he were the only attractive man with a heartbeat in the entire world). “Come to think of it, you do sleep on my chest a lot.”

Eames rubbed the back of his neck, sat up, and put the earpieces in. “Right, shut up,” he said absently, moving the diaphragm to rest on Arthur’s chest. There it was, the soft lub-dub of his heart. Eames closed his eyes for a moment. When he remembered and opened them again, Arthur was looking at him curiously.

“Is it _any_ heartbeat?” Arthur asked, and that was the question Eames wanted to avoid, so naturally Arthur asked it.

“A stranger’s heartbeat doesn’t really do that much for me, so no,” Eames said, which technically did answer the question, and was also true.

“Hm. Do you have preferences for... like... the speed? Like, post-exercise, during sleep....” Arthur shrugs. “During and after sex?”

“I appreciate the differences, yes,” Eames said, moving the diaphragm around, as a doctor would. He noticed that Arthur’s nipples had gone hard, but that wasn’t unexpected; there was cool metal touching his skin, after all.

“What about the pulse, do you notice someone’s pulse?” Arthur’s billion questions were oddly comforting.

“It can help to enhance things, yes.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t know this about you,” Arthur sighed to the ceiling. “I could have made you a recording or something.” Eames glanced at him, surprised, just as Arthur looked back to him. “If you wanted one,” he added, ears pink.

“You could still make one,” Eames said, trying to seem impassive. He removed the earpieces, resting the stethoscope around his neck.

Arthur sat up on his elbows again and grinned, fond and knowing. “You don’t have to play it cool, Eames,” he said. “You want to get off listening to my heartbeat, go ahead.” He raised a finger. “Or! _I_ could get off while you listen to my heartbeat.”

“Brilliant idea, Arthur.” It was, but it wouldn’t hurt for Eames to sound a bit sarcastic.

“Get me the lube, you’re closer,” Arthur said, shimmying out of his underpants. He caught the tube when Eames threw it, and wasted no time getting his palm slick and settling in again. He was hard, Eames couldn’t help noticing.

“Get on my left side,” Arthur instructed further. Eames put the earpieces in again, and laid on his side, facing Arthur, who gave himself a squeeze.

“Just go as you would normally,” Eames said, and damn it all, he did sound a little breathless.

Arthur grinned, starting to wank. “Way ahead of you,” he said. Eames placed the diaphragm directly over his heart.

Arthur never minded being looked at, and Eames’ heartbeat thing most likely fit neatly into his benign narcissism. So much the better.

There was also something about watching a man wank himself off (or watching a woman get herself off, for that matter) that appealed to Eames outside of this particular kink: there was such a sense of deep involvement with oneself, such a can-do attitude, bred of years of familiarity. So telling to watch them employ what they’d learned worked for them through trial and error.

Arthur, of the dexterous fingers, rather liked teasing himself if he possibly could make himself wait to come. Eames thought teasing oneself took the unexpected out of the equation and hence a lot of the fun, but it wasn’t surprising that Arthur liked it, and Eames wasn’t going to complain. Arthur’s skin flushed to a rather startling extent when he was aroused, and it was fascinating to watch. He was sensitive, and when he was unguarded, as now, he had a tendency to squirm, make little sounds in his throat, and pinch his nipples.

It was enough of a tableau for an observant person like himself that Eames almost forgot to listen to his heartbeat. Just as it was starting to kick up, Arthur would pause, take himself back down a notch or two, and start over.

His eyes were closed. “I feel weird with you not saying anything,” he said, and licked his lips, smiling.

“Shush,” Eames mock-scolded.

“Right, right, my heartbeat.” Arthur chuckled, and started to really go for it. Eames felt and heard his heart give a great thump, and stay at that fast pace from then until Arthur was groaning breathlessly, come splashing his flat stomach.

Eames thought he might be able to tell, just from listening to the heartbeat and observing nothing else, the moment when Arthur started to come, but it was difficult to be sure.

One thing Eames loved about the heartbeat was that it was such a profound tell, one that couldn’t be controlled. Something you had to keep guarded and secret, the way your heart skipped a beat, the way it pounded.

Eames’ heart, for example, was beating faster as he kneeled up next to Arthur, moved his flies out of the way, took himself in hand, and started wanking off over Arthur, looking down at his flushed skin, the way his chest pulled in air, his cupid’s-bow lips parted.

Eames put his free hand on Arthur’s chest, felt his heart still running fast, closed his eyes against the way Arthur was watching his face. With Arthur’s skin hot and damp and smooth under his hand, the faint rhythm of his heartbeat reverberating through them, he came, eyes snapping open to watch his come mark Arthur’s chest.

While that had been an extremely satisfying orgasm even as orgasms went, and Eames’ thighs were trembling a bit, he felt far more vulnerable than he liked, and when he accidentally made eye contact with Arthur, he felt his face turning red.

“Hey, c’mere,” Arthur said, voice a little rough, smiling, reaching for him.

As Eames took off the stethoscope, Arthur pulled him down onto his chest; Eames allowed himself to gingerly rest in the dabs of semen. He’d laid in far worse, after all.

Arthur was warm and Arthur-scented. His hands spread out on Eames’ skin, and then his non-sticky hand stroked his hair, lulling him into relaxation. Eames dozed off with Arthur’s heartbeat in his ear.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Liz for reading this over!


End file.
